Excel has no built-in shortcut key that turns existing text into capital letters. The shortest reliable route is the UPPER function: type =UPPER(A2) in an empty cell next to your text, press Enter, fill the formula down, then copy the results and use Paste Special > Values to replace the original text. If you want something closer to a shortcut, Ctrl+E (Flash Fill) can finish a column after you type one example, and you can assign your own key combination to a small macro.
Applies to: Excel for Microsoft 365, Excel 2024, Excel 2021, Excel 2019 and Excel 2016 for Windows; the UPPER function also works in Excel for Mac. Checked against Microsoft Support on October 6, 2026.
Why there is no capital letters shortcut in Excel
Microsoft Word has a Change Case button and a keyboard shortcut for switching case. Excel does not. Microsoft’s own guidance for Excel says that, unlike Word, Excel has no button for changing capitalization, and it points to three worksheet functions instead: UPPER, LOWER and PROPER.
This matters because many pages claim that Shift+F3 changes case in Excel. It does not. In Word, Shift+F3 switches selected text between upper case, lower case and title case. In Excel for Windows, Microsoft lists Shift+F3 as the shortcut to insert a function, and in Excel for Mac it opens the Formula Builder. Microsoft’s Excel shortcut list contains no shortcut for changing text case at all.
So you have four legitimate options. Pick the one that fits your data:
| Method | Keys involved | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| UPPER formula in a helper column | Enter, Ctrl+D, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Alt+V | Any amount of data; the most dependable method |
| Flash Fill | Ctrl+E | A quick one-time conversion of a single column |
| Your own macro shortcut | A combination you choose, such as Ctrl+Shift+U | People who convert text to capitals often |
| Word round trip | Shift+F3 in Word | A small block of text when Word is already open |
What you need before you start
- An empty column next to the text you want to change. This temporary column is often called a helper column. If there is no free column, insert one.
- A saved copy of the workbook if the data is important, especially before you try the macro method, because macros cannot be undone.
Convert text to capital letters with the UPPER function
This example assumes your text starts in cell A2 and column B is empty.
- Click cell B2, the empty cell beside your first piece of text.
- Type =UPPER(A2) and press Enter. Cell B2 now shows the text from A2 in capital letters. For example, “total” becomes “TOTAL”.
- Select cell B2 again, then double-click the small square in its lower-right corner (the fill handle). Excel copies the formula down the column beside your data. As an alternative, select B2 and the cells below it and press Ctrl+D, or choose Home > Fill > Down.
- Select all of the cells that contain the UPPER formulas and press Ctrl+C to copy them.
- Click the first cell of the original text (A2). Press Ctrl+Alt+V to open the Paste Special dialog box, or go to Home > Paste > Paste Special.
- Choose Values and confirm. This option pastes only the values as displayed in the cells, so column A now holds plain capital-letter text instead of formulas.
- Delete the helper column (column B), since it is no longer needed.
Do the paste step before you delete anything. The formulas in column B read their text from column A, so they need to be converted to values first. A normal paste with Ctrl+V would copy the formulas rather than the finished text.
UPPER, LOWER and PROPER compared
The same steps work with Excel’s other two case functions. Swap the function name in step 2.
| Formula | What it does | Microsoft’s example |
|---|---|---|
| =UPPER(A2) | Converts text to uppercase | “Yield” becomes “YIELD” |
| =LOWER(A2) | Converts all uppercase letters to lowercase | “Apt. 2B” becomes “apt. 2b” |
| =PROPER(A2) | Capitalizes the first letter and any letter that follows a character that is not a letter; makes the rest lowercase | “this is a TITLE” becomes “This Is A Title” |
PROPER is handy for names, but check its results. Because it capitalizes any letter that follows a non-letter character, Microsoft’s examples show “2-way street” becoming “2-Way Street” and “76BudGet” becoming “76Budget”.
Use Ctrl+E (Flash Fill) as a shortcut
Flash Fill fills a column for you when it senses a pattern in what you type. It is the closest thing Excel has to a built-in capital letters shortcut, and it needs no formula. Microsoft lists it for Excel 2016 and later.
- In the empty cell beside your first piece of text, type that text in capital letters and press Enter. If A2 contains “north region”, type NORTH REGION in B2.
- Start typing the capital-letter version of the next row in B3. If Excel senses the pattern, it shows a preview of the remaining cells. Press Enter to accept the preview.
- If no preview appears, click in the column you are filling and press Ctrl+E, or go to Data > Flash Fill.
Scan the filled cells before you rely on them. Flash Fill works from the pattern in your example, so an unusual row may not be filled the way you expect. If the automatic preview never appears, open Excel’s options, go to Advanced, and under Editing Options make sure the Automatically Flash Fill box is checked.
Create your own capital letters shortcut key with a macro
If you convert text often, you can attach a key combination to a macro, which is a saved set of instructions. This is the only way to get a true one-press shortcut in Excel. Two warnings from Microsoft apply: a macro’s shortcut key overrides any default Excel shortcut that uses the same keys while the workbook that contains the macro is open, and macros cannot be undone. Save your workbook before you run one.
These steps are for Excel for Windows.
- Show the Developer tab, which is hidden by default. Go to File > Options > Customize Ribbon, select the Developer checkbox under Main Tabs, and choose OK.
- On the Developer tab, select Record Macro.
- In the Macro name box, type a name such as MakeUpper. The name must start with a letter and cannot contain spaces.
- Click in the Shortcut key box, hold Shift and type U. An uppercase letter makes the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+U; a lowercase letter would make it Ctrl+U, which is more likely to clash with a built-in shortcut.
- In the Store macro in box, select Personal Macro Workbook and select OK. This is a hidden workbook that opens in the background every time you open Excel, so the shortcut is available in all of your workbooks. Excel creates it if you do not already have one.
- Recording has started, but you do not need to record anything. Select Stop Recording on the Developer tab right away.
- Select Developer > Visual Basic to open the Visual Basic Editor. In the Project Explorer pane, open VBA Project (PERSONAL.xlsb) > Modules > Module1. Your macro appears there; it begins with a line starting “Sub” and ends with “End Sub”.
- Between those two lines, type the four lines shown below, then close the Visual Basic Editor.
- When you close Excel, you are prompted to save the Personal Macro Workbook as well. Save it, or the macro and its shortcut are lost.
- Dim c As Range
- For Each c In Selection
- If Not c.HasFormula And VarType(c.Value) = vbString Then c.Value = UCase(c.Value)
- Next c
To use it, select the cells you want to change and press Ctrl+Shift+U. The macro goes through each selected cell and, if the cell holds typed text rather than a formula or a number, replaces it with the uppercase version. UCase is the Visual Basic function for uppercase; Microsoft documents that it converts only lowercase letters and leaves uppercase letters and non-letter characters unchanged. You can also run the macro from Developer > Macros > Run.
To change or remove the shortcut later, go to Developer > Macros, select the macro, and choose Options. On a Mac, Microsoft notes that a lowercase letter in the Shortcut key box produces Option+Command+letter rather than Ctrl+letter.
Change the case in Word and paste it back
For a short list, you can borrow Word’s real case shortcut.
- Copy the cells in Excel and paste them into a Word document.
- Select the pasted text in Word.
- Press Shift+F3 until the text is in uppercase, or go to the Home tab, select Change case, and choose UPPERCASE.
- Copy the text in Word and paste it back over the original cells in Excel.
Check that each value lands in the right row after you paste. For anything longer than a screen of data, the UPPER function is safer because the text never leaves the worksheet.
Confirm the result or undo it
Click one of the converted cells and look at the formula bar. If you see capital-letter text, the conversion is finished. If you see =UPPER(…), the cell still holds a formula and depends on the original text; repeat the Paste Special > Values step.
Formula, Flash Fill and paste changes can be reversed with Ctrl+Z, which undoes the last action. Macro changes are the exception, which is why saving first is important. To go back to lowercase or to names with initial capitals at any time, repeat the helper-column steps with LOWER or PROPER.
Troubleshooting
Shift+F3 opens a function window instead of changing case
That is the expected behavior in Excel. Shift+F3 inserts a function in Excel for Windows. The case-switching behavior belongs to Word.
There is no small square to double-click or drag
The fill handle may be turned off. Go to File > Options > Advanced and select the Enable fill handle and cell drag-and-drop checkbox. You can also skip the fill handle and use Ctrl+D.
The filled cells all show the same result
Formulas do not recalculate when you fill cells if automatic calculation is off. Go to File > Options > Formulas and, under Workbook Calculation, choose Automatic.
Flash Fill does nothing
Make sure your typed example sits directly beside the original text, then press Ctrl+E or use Data > Flash Fill. If only the automatic preview is missing, turn on Automatically Flash Fill as described above.
The capital letters disappeared after deleting a column
The helper formulas were still reading from the cells you removed. Press Ctrl+Z to bring the column back, then paste the results as values before deleting anything.
A familiar shortcut stopped working after adding the macro
The macro’s shortcut key is overriding a default Excel shortcut. Open Developer > Macros > Options and pick a different letter, preferably with Shift held down.
The Developer tab or macros are not available
On a work or school computer, your organization may manage which Excel features you can use. If you cannot show the Developer tab or record a macro, use the UPPER function or Flash Fill, which need no special permissions, or ask your IT administrator.
Frequently asked questions
What is the shortcut key for capital letters in Excel?
There is no built-in one. Excel’s official shortcut list has no shortcut for changing case. Use =UPPER(A2), press Ctrl+E for Flash Fill after typing one example, or assign your own shortcut to a macro.
Does Ctrl+Shift+A or Shift+F3 work in Excel?
No. Those are Word shortcuts: Ctrl+Shift+A changes selected text to all upper case and Shift+F3 switches between cases. In Excel, Shift+F3 inserts a function.
Can I capitalize only the first letter of each word?
Yes. Use =PROPER(A2) in the helper column instead of UPPER. It is a good fit after you merge first and last names in Excel and want every name to look consistent.
Can I convert the text without adding a column?
A formula cannot replace the text in its own cell, so the UPPER method needs a temporary column that you delete afterward. The macro method changes the selected cells in place, and the Word round trip also avoids a helper column.
Does UPPER work in Excel for Mac?
Yes. Microsoft lists the UPPER function for Excel for Microsoft 365 for Mac, Excel 2024 for Mac and Excel 2021 for Mac. On a Mac, Microsoft lists Command+C to copy and Command+Control+V for Paste Special.
How do I type in capital letters as I go?
Turn on Caps Lock on your keyboard before you type, or hold Shift for individual letters. That affects new typing only; it does not change text that is already in the worksheet.
Can Power Query make text uppercase?
Yes. Power Query, Excel’s tool for importing and reshaping data, has a Text.Upper function that returns text converted to uppercase. It is worth learning if you clean the same imported file repeatedly, but it is more than most one-time jobs need.
For the official reference, see Microsoft’s guide to changing the case of text in Excel and its list of Excel keyboard shortcuts. If your capitalized column still contains stray symbols or extra text, the next step is to remove unwanted characters from a cell in Excel.
Related: strikethrough in Excel.
Related: capitalize each word in Excel.
Matt Jacobs has been working as an IT consultant for small businesses since receiving his Master’s degree in 2003. While he still does some consulting work, his primary focus now is on creating technology support content for SupportYourTech.com.
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